New Tricks : The Queen’s Speech

The final episode of Series 11 sees the team investigating the murder of a girl, Amy Taskerland, during her school disco in 1983. she had buried a tape in a time capsule which the gardening club had accidentally dug up and when listening to it Sasha (Tamzin Outhwaite) hears Amy talking about Alec who she surmises is a boyfriend. On listening to Side B of the tape Danny (Nicholas Lyndhurst) recognises it as the speech the Queen would have given in the event of a nuclear attack. ( If you’re interested the full speech is here https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/08/queen-elizabeth-speech-written-for-her-to-give-in-case-of-nuclear-war.html ) The trouble is that the speech was only declassified under the 30 year rule in 2013, so how could a 16 year old schoolgirl know about it? What secret is the headmaster hiding that means he is reluctant to have the crime reinvestigated? What about Amy’s father, an apparently distant man who walked away from Amy that night to her obvious distress? As the team dig deeper, the truth becomes ever more difficult to get hold of, but Wham! could end up holding the key! Finally, will the team frighten off Sasha’s potential boyfriend and why does DAC Strickland suddenly want to go out for a drink with them?

The Background

This episode is based on a genuinely unsettling real life premise. In 1983 the NATO forces held exercises in Western Europe that the Russians were convinced, briefly, were the precursor to a full scale attack. For two days, there was a real chance of the world being plunged into nuclear war. In the event that it became imminent, 600 people from various walks of life were to head to 12 regional headquarters where they would stay for two years or until the country was deemed safe enough to reinhabit above ground. Everyone else was being told to ‘Protect and Survive’ inside their homes, or as Danny noted prepare their own coffins! If you were a teenager in that time, there was a fair chance, as far as you were concerned, of never making it to adulthood. The songs around that time by Nik Kershaw, Ultravox, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Nena were testament to that fear. Well, if you couldn’t affect it you may as well dance to it!

Highlights

When the team go to Amy’s old school (which bears a strange resemblance to Harrow!) Danny and Gerry (Dennis Waterman) are playing basketball. Sasha tells them to come with her and Danny throws a huge three pointer from wide out on the court. Nicholas Lyndhurst’s nonchalance is just superb, but I would love to know how many takes there were for that basket!

Anthony Calf, has played Strickland superbly well throughout the 11 seasons as he has gone from being suspicious and unbending to become steadily more supportive of the team and much more prepared to turn a blind eye to their sometimes unorthodox methods. In this episode he asks to go out for a drink with them which leads to the awkward silence that anyone who has ever socialised with their boss will recognise immediately. Things warm up when Sasha’s new boyfriend Ethan (Alun Raglan) turns up to try to persuade Sasha to go to Barcelona with him. When Danny finds out that Ethan owns a record shop he is immediately interested. To Sasha’s huge embarrassment the discussion moves from vinyl records to a ‘euphemistic’ chat about how you treat vinyl which runs the full gamut from treating it gently to putting the needle in the groove! The scene is hilarious and played with beautifully straight faces by all concerned.

Gerry isn’t at the pub because he has been forced to go to the stag night of his future son-in-law Robin, who is marrying Gerry’s daughter Caitlin. In an attempt to bond with Gerry it takes place in a venue where the guests can try their hands at being butchers, the trade that Gerry’s family had followed for generations, but Gerry isn’t going to play along. The awkward stag do goes from bad to worse as first Gerry finds out that the Best Man hasn’t booked a stripper or even planned to tie Robin to a lamp post. Finally he finds out that Robin has already got Caitlin in the family way! Gerry’s suspicion of a future son-in-law who comes from very different circumstances is clear, but it turns out all is not yet lost.

Steve (Denis Lawson) is not to the fore in this episode although he does make a breakthrough when he goes off piste with Danny investigating the bunker. He also manages to fit in the inevitable, ‘What exactly did you do in the diplomatic service?’ question!

This is definitely Danny’s episode though, and the image that stuck in my mind from the very first time I saw it was the sight of him striding through the school, across the football pitch and up to the steps where Amy was killed, carrying a huge ghetto blaster on his shoulder that is playing ‘Club Tropicana’ (the 12 minute remix version) at full volume! It is just a fantastic moment of physical comedy that Nicholas Lyndhurst has specialised in throughout his career.

The Verdict

This is without doubt one of the top 5 episodes of the entire run with a fantastic mix of comedy and drama. Once you have finished watching AC-12 you really should catch up with UCOS and this episode in particular.